How to Silently Manage Your Classroom

1. Place a sign on a student’s desk which describes their behavior: “distracted, focused, bien, mal.” Upgrade signs as behavior improves.
2. Tap the student’s desk lightly. Make a ‘follow me’ motion. Walk to a motivational poster, or a poster sharing the class expectations. Look at the poster together for a minute in standardized hand-on-chin-art-critic-position. Then walk the student back to their chair.
3. When students walk around too much, place a masking-tape dotted line around their desk overnight to limit their motion. This works creepily well every time, even with no verbal explanation.
4. Keep a list of absurd rules over the years, and when a student breaks one, silently walk over with the rule list and point out the rule they’re breaking.
5. Pass out a paper with the real class rules with the direction: “highlight the rule you’re breaking.” Ideally there could be a multiple choice question at the bottom with the choices: "I understand and will improve, I don't understand but I want to improve, and Nope, not today, we'll both benefit if I learn in a separate classroom." Ideally, this would be a Google Form posted somewhere easy to find on your teacher website.
6. If you’re strong enough, and your students are slim enough, simply pull their desk to an area of less distraction.
7. Place a fake window cut out on the paper of a student who continually looks out the window. Suddenly, they can view their work through a window. They'll smile, and hand you back the window, and get to work. (The fact that you have a laminated window manipulative prepped and ready will genuinely scare kids a bit.) 
8. Give a problem student a quest to a far away land which will keep them busy and allow everyone else to learn.
9. Challenge talkative students to a ‘breath holding’ competition. Check periodically for consciousness.
10. Hand out papers labeled “draw a dragon” when students are done early and are antsy...
11. Place a small paper with a frowny face on students desks when they’re bad.
12. Place a small paper with a smiley face on students desks when they’re good.
13. Randomly bring in 70 wrist-sized ribbons and start tying them on students wrists when they’re good during work time. They’ll pick up on it super fast, and work absurdly hard for pennies worth of ribbon.
14.  Keep a table of super-comfy chairs and access to headphones and Pandora.com. During work time, silently wave the best-behaved groups over to the supreme work table of supremacy.
15. Place a guardian stuffed animal next to a student. Make sure the animal is holding a sign that reads “I’m watching you.” Creepier stuffed animals work better for this method.
16. Give bullied students a thrift-store helmet for protection.
17. Give bullied students safety goggles for protection.
18. Give sad students an adorable stuffed animal for snuggle-age.
19. Keep a blanket in your classroom, and during the winter, give it to a student who performs particularly well. Clean it often.
20. Keep a mirror in your room. When students keep looking at the ceiling, angle the mirror so the ceiling reflects their paper.
21. Develop a universal signal for “you’re doing it wrong.” I have two: I stroke my beard in an exaggerated-thought posture, or I lightly kick the back left leg of students desks when they do something they should know is wrong. Only use a ‘kick the back left leg of a student’s desk when you have a very strong relationship with both the student and their parents. Don’t kick random students' desks. Bad idea.
22. Stare. Longer than is comfortable. Then stare longer. Keep staring. Then, when it’s super awkward, do the point to your eyes, point to them, point to your eyes, point to them. Embrace the awkwardness. End with an up-nod.
23. Exaggerate proximity. Don’t just move close, move your chair over and sit right next to the bad student. Put your face no more than three feet from their face. See #22 for an added kick.
24. Give a thumbs-up.
25. Throw your arms out wide in the universal “what are you doing” pose.
26. Place a new paper in front of a student who has done everything wrong add a smiley face to soften the blow.
27. Instead of telling a student to leave your classroom for a time-out in another room, place it on their desk as a note, with a fresh copy of everything they might need. It eliminates audience, and therefore, eliminates explosions and arguments.
28. Sneak up behind students when you know they’re being bad. Snap your fingers once before the next bout of badness. Shake your head in disappointment.
29. Sneak up behind students when you know they’re being great. Snap your fingers once before the next bout of amazing-ness. Smile with exaggerated happiness.
30. After a student has performed greatly, drop off a cookie at their cafeteria table for them to let them know you noticed.
31. Write an example story that not-so-subtly describes the behaviors of a student (either good or bad) and exaggerates the benefits or drawbacks of such behavior.
32. Sit next to a student demonstrating proper posture. Stay until they sit up and look at their paper. (Yes, college humans, sometimes, you will need to remind people to accomplish something as simple as looking at their paper no matter how many research-based strategies your lesson utilizes.)
33. Sit next to a disorganized student and place your book or resource, worksheet or graphic organizer, and pen or pencil where they belong on a well-organized desk. Stay until the student mimics your organization.
34. Squint your eyes at bad students like you can see through their souls.
35. Make notes throughout the entire class of everything that everyone did right (or wrong) and share the list of everything you noticed at the end of class. Silly adolescent boys are less likely to misbehave tomorrow when all the students walk out of class past a list that reads “a student made his arms into crocodile chompers and pretended to chomp a book like it was a tasty snacky-poo.” Words are powerful. Ironically, you’d think that this would make Nathan hate you. Usually, you become his favorite teacher after using techniques like this as long as you do it with genuine laughter, the illusion of anonymity, and acceptance that kids are kids. Years later, you might see Nathan with “Nater the Gater” on the back of his soccer warm-up hoodie, because the inside joke will flourish into a nickname that Nathan loves.
36. Walk around and draw smiley faces on every answer students get right.
37. Walk around silently during work time and write frowny faces on student papers when they get an answer wrong.
38. Raise an eyebrow when students make awkward sexual references which makes it clear that you understand what they said, they should wish you didn’t understand what they said, and they’ll never say it again.
39. Tap twice on a student’s desk to get their attention. Wave in the universal c’mere way. Tap twice on the desk to which you want them to move. Then continue helping other students. Silence = no audience = no explosion. GIVE THEM TIME TO COMPLY. They will spend thirty seconds in sullen defiance, then they will move. Do not do more until at least a minute has passed.
40. Write down the three most-broken-rules or most-ignored-expectations and during work time, tap on desks, and point at the appropriate rule reminder as students break rules or fail to meet expectations.
41. Some day before a vacation, have students write down a major goal or dream they have. Keep them all filed and organized. Make 1,000,000 photocopies of the best and worst students’ goals. Hand them photocopies of their own inspirational words each time they behave either well or poorly. Their own words are infinitely more powerful than your words. Accept it. You’re not in a Hallmark teacher movie.
42. Place stickers on students papers, desks, binders, or faces when they are great.
43. Print out a list of report card comment codes and give them to unruly students with the written directions: “highlight how you would choose to describe yourself in my class to your parents.”
44. As students work, sit by your computer, or stand by your white board, and write down a list of quotes that highlight the best and worst that your students have to offer. It’s great to see beautifully phrased words immortalized. It’s horrible to see that you said “yea but, um... it was like, ya know, when, like she said, it was um... like it was that other one... ya know?" when you should have been talking about the impact of slavery on the southern economy during the Civil War.
45. Tape a written copy of a behavioral expectation on each desk, or in my case, table. Rotate expectations weekly. This works like the airport. When you need to walk by infinity signs that read “take your liquids out of your luggage” you start laughing at the idiots who didn’t take their liquids out of their luggage instead of leaving your liquids in your suitcase and claiming you didn’t know. Classroom rules work the same way.
46. Shake your head using your “ashamed I know you” face.
47. Give a giant smile and thumbs-up when students who are usually bad behave well.
48. Place red post-it notes on the desk of students who behave poorly. Place green post-it notes on the desk of students who behave well. Don’t explain your actions at all. Just creating awareness creates change.
49. Watch. Silently. And watch them watching you. Then watch them some more. Always watch them. Preferably, watch them creepily from a corner or a perch. Label your perch “The Watchin’ Perch” so they know that when you’re on The Watchin’ Perch you’ll see everything they do. They need to know you’re watching.
50. Never correct papers when there are students in the room. They know you’re not watching and will be bad.
51. Place a video camera or camera phone in a poor disguise like a pitcher plant, place the plant next to the student you want to watch, now they can’t misbehave without irrefutable evidence of misbehavior. Be aware of recording and camera laws in your district before using this method. 
52. Fill out a fake (or real) parent teacher conference form with the behavior a student does, or quote a student says, or activity a student does not participate in, and point to the ‘student signature’ section you create on the bottom. Either he’ll sign it or he’ll behave better. Either way you win.
53. Have a universal form that students need to sign when they misbehave, and a different universal form they need to sign when they refuse to work. Make is simple: include space for their name, the date, a checkbox for "I know my teacher tried to help me more than once and I refused..." and a signature. At first, students LOVE signing the paper and being removed from class, then when you use Remind or Class Dojo to send the image of their proud signature to their Mom, and they experience vengeful wrath, they work immediately and diligently. 
    
54. When you know someone did something. Glare. Glare hard. Then accuse the best student in class with a silent pointed finger or some such similar accusatory action. She’ll look at the student who actually broke the rule, or threw the pencil, or threw the gum, or whatever. Now you know who broke the rule even if you don’t follow number 51. 
55. Walk the comfiest comfy chair in the universe over to the best behaved student in the universe. Prompt them with a little nod to move into the new chair. Everyone will notice. When they complain, give them the finger-to-mouth universal shush sign. The dichotomy between good behavior and bad behavior will be made clear.
56. Keep a kindergarten chair in your middle school classroom. Never make a student sit in it. That would be incendiary and would cause more problems than it solved. Instead, move it progressively closer to students behaving poorly. In a perfect world, the fear of you making them sit in the baby chair will be plenty enough for them to behave better.
57. During a day when students don’t listen to you. Stop talking. Teach the entire class by typing into a text document. I like Notepad as a program because in full screen mode there is no wasted toolbar or margin space on the screen. Their eyes can’t escape your silently enraged words.
58. When a class gets unruly beyond control. Give up. Stop trying. Walk silently to your desk and read your favorite copy of The Hobbit. It takes about three minutes before they notice and want your approval again.
59. When a class gets unruly beyond control. Give up. Stop trying. Walk silently to your desk and go into ZOMBIE TEACHER mode. Adopt the blank stare that zoned-out students have. Stare out the window. Refuse to respond to questions. Be a disengaged student. It takes about three minutes before they notice and want your approval again.
60. Stare at a student and hold your finger to your temple as if you are trying to Jedi Mind Trick them, or control them by telepathy, or be Shawn Spencer from Psych. Chances are, if your students are anything like mine, you’ll end up in a useless mirrored pantomime where you each try to ‘drive’ the other’s actions with your mind. Play it right, and you can eventually, silently work the pantomime back to the student focusing on their work. Even if this distracts a few kids, you win enough street cred that it will curb misbehavior in the long run.
61. Have two pictures hung, or projected. One picture could depict a great student working hard while the other could depict a student slacking off and un-focused. As students misbehave or lose focus, kneel next to them and look up at the board with curiosity.
62. Have cheap t-shirts made and give them out when students are fantastic. They could read something like “School Ninja” or “My Dog did not Eat my Homework” or “School Swag” or any other such slogan that might help students realize that hard work in school pays off.
63. Notice small things, like a student coughing, and give her a pass before she asks to get a drink. She’ll think you’re omniscient. So will everyone else.
64. Notice small things, like a student’s pencil with a worn-out eraser, and place one of those eraser-ends on it. He’ll be amazed, and terrified that you pay so much attention to such small details.
65. When students click, tap, or make noise in any other obnoxious fashion, hand them a foamy silent version of whatever they’re playing with (the only possible answers are pen, pencil, or ruler) so they can continue to have the comfort of fidgeting without the negative side effect of distracting the rest of the class.
66. Just talk less.

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